What is Socialism?

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Vincent Van Dinsky
  • Building the Panama Canal –
  • Winning WW II –
  • Building the Interstate Highway System –
  • Inventing the Internet –
  • Putting people on the Moon –
  • Public transportation
  • Fire departments
  • Police departments
  • Public libraries
  • Every branch of the US military
  • Roads & highways
  • Social Security
  • Medicare/medicaid
  • Public, not private prisons & jails
  • Public hospitals
  • The Veterans Affairs Administration
  • Public universities
  • Public parks
  • Public toilets
  • Public drinking fountains
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Vote by Mail Advantages

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Vincent Van Dinsky
  • No standing in line –
  • No taking time off work –
  • No transportation problems –
  • We have a 500 hour window to vote instead of a 12 hour window –
  • Reduces or eliminates weather problems –
  • Ballots are transported not by volunteers or temps, but by federal employees trained in security — postal workers
  • Ballot transportation security is protected by federal law
  • There are never any large numbers of ballots in one place (e.g. ballot boxes) except in the secure counting facility, so ballots can’t “go missing.”
  • No armed racist “poll watchers” at polling places
  • No worries about police looking for people with outstanding warrants
  • No worries about false messaging about polling places or election days
  • Bomb threats can’t shut down voting
  • Epidemics such as coronavirus can’t be used as a pretext to shut down elections
  • Recountable, by hand if necessary
  • No election-day credential challenges
  • Visit the website to see if your ballot was counted, if it wasn’t, you can re-vote – or sign up for email notifications
  • If you didn’t get a ballot, same story, 3 weeks to correct the problem
  • No crappy voting machines in poor or POC precincts
  • No misaligned paper in machines – no machines!
  • If you vote early, the campaigns stop calling you and sending you junk mail
  • People talk about the civic nostalgia of gathering at a physical polling place, but that’s pretty much a white privilege thing (cf. intimidation and taking time off work)
  • No “illegal immigrants” voting — this isn’t a problem anyway, but it calls the bluff of people who say it is.
  • Machines that print out a paper ballot can be hacked to print something different than what they actually record. That’s not the same as a paper ballot.
  • It stymies polling and forces the media to wait until the election is over to get the results. Which is what elections are for.
Posted in Politics | 4 Comments

Walmart dodged US tax on $2 billion by routing cash through multiple countries

Posted on December 1, 2019 by Vincent Van Dinsky

https://qz.com/1756717/whistleblower-alleges-walmart-engineered-2-billion-tax-dodge/

Posted in Corporate greed | Leave a comment

Google’s secret cache of medical data includes names and full details of millions

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Vincent Van Dinsky

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/12/google-medical-data-project-nightingale-secret-transfer-us-health-information

Posted in Corporate greed | Leave a comment

Uber CEO compares Saudi killing of Khashoggi to their mistakes with self-driving cars

Posted on November 11, 2019 by Vincent Van Dinsky

https://news.yahoo.com/uber-ceo-compares-saudi-killing-133941847.html

In a TV interview for the programme Axios on HBO, Uber’s Dara Khosrowshahi responded to a question about Saudi Arabia’s investment in the firm by saying, “I think that government said they made a mistake”.

“It’s a serious mistake. We’ve made mistakes too, right, with self-driving. We stopped driving and we’re recovering from that mistake.

“People make mistakes. It doesn’t mean they can never be forgiven.”

In a statement given after the interview, Mr Khosrowshahi backtracked and said: “I said something in the moment that I do not believe. When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused.”

The question centred on Yasir al-Rumayyan, the director of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, who is a member of Uber’s board of directors.

The sovereign wealth fund is Uber’s fifth-biggest investor.

Posted in WTF | Leave a comment

Uber offers payday loans to drivers

Posted on November 9, 2019 by Vincent Van Dinsky

What could go wrong?

https://www.ccn.com/uber-personal-loans-drivers/

Posted in Corporate greed | Leave a comment